> caused by financial firms selling a lot of crazy mortgages to people who could not afford them unless housing prices went up forever. When the crisis hit, the

> caused by financial firms selling a lot of crazy mortgages to people who could not afford them unless housing prices went up forever. When the crisis hit, the firms got the blame, not their customers. This is not totally correct. 2008 was caused by banks giving out extremely risky mortgages (the banks knew they were risky mortgages) and then packaging them up into giant bundles and magically calling them AAA stable real estate investments and selling them forward to other banks/pensions/401ks. Banks are responsible for assessing the risk on a mortgage, not the customer.